


C is for Complications

by smoakmonster



Series: How I Love Thee: A to Z [3]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, OHFAT, Olicity Hiatus Fic-A-Thon, Season/Series 02, Unrequited Love, olicity - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 13:16:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12299901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smoakmonster/pseuds/smoakmonster
Summary: As Felicity wrestles with her unrequited feelings for Oliver, she devises a way to help herself overcome them. But sometimes good plans lead to unexpected results.





	C is for Complications

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Sent to the Wrong Printer
> 
> I originally aimed for funny, but the muse had other ideas. Set in between 2x06 and 2x07. Enjoy!

_I love you_.

The words had been rattling around inside her all morning, really ever since they had gotten back from Russia, ever since she’d told him. _You deserve better than her. You deserve better. You deserve...to be with me?_

Felicity shook her head, as she attempted to focus on the swarm of emails currently cluttering her inbox.

_Mr. Queen needs to read the updated proposal. I have attached a copy to this email..._

_Since Mr. Queen could not be bothered to attend our last three meetings..._

_Please inform Mr. Queen that as CEO he is responsible for…_

Felicity puffed out her cheeks in attempt to relax herself, as she swiftly typed a response to all the emails labeled “URGENT.” And she’d thought hacking into the FBI had been stressful.

She did glean a small amount of pride, though, in being the sort of gatekeeper to the CEO. She was protecting him, just like she protected him every night that he was on the streets, sending warnings about what lay ahead, deterring unwelcome complications, like street cameras recording him taking his hood off in a well-lit alley or the timestamp similarities between _Oliver Queen_ leaving a scene and _The Arrow_ arriving.

If only she could deter other, emotional complications so easily.

As degrading as it still was, playing secretary by day, never before had she been so grateful for boring office work as she was today. Answering trivial complaints and scheduling an unnecessary amount of meetings that Oliver was “required” to attend kept her busy, kept her mind distracted from the way her heart pinched strangely every time she paused long enough to remember standing outside Oliver’s hotel room...and watching Isabel Rochev saunter out of it.

Felicity wasn’t blind. She knew Oliver’s reputation. She’d _seen_ it firsthand with Helena and Laurel and...and now with _Isabel._

But that was before. Before she started working with him. Before he became her friend. Before he became...something _more_.

When exactly had she let herself care about Oliver Queen so much? When had he become so important?

And yet, somehow, she was pretty sure she’d known for a long time that what she felt for Oliver was too much, so far beyond too much. And that weird, nervous thrill that fluttered inside her chest whenever she remained in Oliver’s presence was specific to Oliver himself. He’d tried all his usual playboy antics on her at the beginning; and even though she’d seen right through them, they’d still sort of...worked?

Because the man she’d gotten to know over the past year was different than anyone she’d ever met. He was better than he pretended to be. He was _real_. There was so much depth and goodness and honor in his soul that he kept hidden from the world, from his family...even from himself.

And she didn’t understand why.

Oliver Queen was the biggest mystery of her life, and she both loved and hated him for it.

_Love._

Oh, that dreaded word again.

Did she really... _love_ him though? She couldn’t afford to. After all, he’d said so himself, caring about someone given what they do every night...it could only bring more pain. She’d already lost so much, her father and Cooper and now….

Felicity swallowed.

Now it was too late.

She cared about him too much to let go now.

That was why she’d stayed, even after they’d found Walter, wasn’t it? The mission was important, but so was he. He was important, but so was the mission. Over and over, every night, she wrestled with her priorities, with his stubborn and reckless behavior, with her inapt and unreturned feelings for him. Sometimes, it was like her mind and heart were at war with one another, like _she_ was the one living a double life. And yet other times, when he’d pause and rest his hand on her shoulder like that, so gently and still so surely, and he look at her with such a softness, like his eyes were calling out to her to save him from...something. Himself? She wanted to know the secrets he only told her in stares.

His gaze often left her jarred...and left her craving more.

Her shoulder always felt so cold when he finally had to pull his hand away.

Since the day she’d found him bleeding in the backseat of her car, Felicity knew that what she felt for Oliver Queen--what she _continued_ to torture herself by feeling for him--went so far beyond admiration or friendship.

Oliver was never just the cute, rich castaway who pestered her occasionally with petty, life-changing requests and lied to her face with a charming smile plastered to his own. Somewhere along the way, she’d started needing him, too.

_I love you._

Those words rushed through her when The Glades came crumbling down around them.

_I love you._

Those words ricocheted inside her chest as Oliver’s warm body smacked against hers, pressing her deeper into the Lian Yu grass, after so many months of not seeing him, of not knowing if he was okay.

_I love you._

Those words gutted her to the core as she turned and walked away from him at a hotel in Russia, bitterly muttering _“even when it makes no sense whatsoever.”_

It still didn’t make sense. And she was still bitter.

And she still loved him.

There. She’d finally indulged herself in not only thinking the words but in allowing herself to linger in them, to let them fill her, to let them hurt her.

Since last year, Felicity had been trying to avoid, deny, or explain away her feelings for Oliver. And now, finally putting a name to it was alarming and yet...soothing in a way she couldn’t explain. It was terrifying and freeing. It was exhilarating and exhausting.

Because he would never feel the same way.

Too bad she couldn’t just write a code to undo everything.

Like getting zapped with a spark of electricity, an idea suddenly came to Felicity. And since she was indulging her thoughts...she might as well go all in.

Pulling up a new blank document, Felicity stared at the empty white page, watching the vertical cursor blink at her over and over, nagging her, taunting her.

Finally, she gave in.

She had to do it. Just once. Just to tell _someone_ , even if that someone was her computer.

Before she could stop herself, Felicity hit eleven keys, typing out three words.

_I love him._

There. That wasn’t so hard.

Felicity jumped when the phone at her desk suddenly rang, and she answered it promptly. While speaking with the head of HR department, Felicity quickly minimized the document on her screen and ignored it for the rest of the morning.

Shortly after lunch, while Oliver was still out of the office with Thea visiting his mother, Felicity dared to open up that document once again and stare at those three aching words.

It wasn’t not enough.

It wasn’t personal enough.

Felicity hit the backspace key three times and tried again.

_I love you._

Gnawing on the inside of her cheek, still unsatisfied, Felicity typed out the final five and most important letters, the letters that, for better or worse, remained etched on her heart.

 _Oliver_.

With a little nod to herself for a job well done, Felicity hit “print” and started making her way over to the sleek and overpriced printer in the corner--

“Felicity!”

She froze at the sound of his voice. Feeling guilty and caught of guard and _flustered_ beyond measure, Felicity took a moment to try to compose herself before turning around and staring the source of her current emotional dilemma right in the face.

“What!” Her voice sounded more like cry for help than a question, so she tried again, clearing her throat. “What?”

Oliver frowned, clearly picking up that something was not quite right with her today. He didn’t know, right? He couldn’t know. How could he know?

Ridiculous man, why did he always have be so observant at the worst times?

“Meeting. Conference room.”

Right.

She sighed once with relief as she followed him directly into the conference, like the obedient assistant that she was.

Well, if _Oliver_ remembering a meeting time on his own didn’t show her off her game she was today, then she didn’t know what would. Thankfully, he was too busy to ask what was actually bothering her. Still, Felicity’s heart decided to badger her for the next two hours. She could barely pay attention to her notes in the beginning. _He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know_. She chanted the words like a mantra, keeping rhythm with her pen tapping against her notepad.

But by the time their meeting ended, it was nearly sunset, and the first wave of crime in the city had already begun. Felicity never made it back to check her printer until the next day, and by then The Count had broken out of prison.

xxx

“Oliver, what are we doing here?”

“I just need to grab something.”

Oliver led Felicity through the long aisles of the evidence warehouse, stacked to the brim with boxes and old files. He’d been here before, though under less pleasant circumstances.  

“Are you sure we’re even allowed to be in here?” Felicity whispered. “I mean, as _us_ ...not, you know, the _other_ us.”

“Well, Lance was able to pull few strings and said that it would be alright,” said Oliver. “We just can’t touch anything other than what I came here for.”

Felicity stopped in her tracks and pouted her lips in that adorably alluring way of hers. “I think you might be abusing your power there, Mr. Mayor.”

“Promise not to tell my secret?” He winked at her, taking a moment to run his thumb once more over the new ring on her finger, nestled against the one with the diamond. He still hadn’t gotten used to that cool, smooth, perfect texture against her skin. He doubted he ever would get used to it...to _them_.

“Only if you promise to finally clue me in on _why_ we’re hanging out in a dusty evidence warehouse in the first place. Not that I don’t appreciate the lighting aesthetic, but I think if we stay here too long my allergies are going to start flaring up.”

“Well, I can’t tell you. I have to show you.”

Oliver smiled as he pulled her along a little further, down a few more rows, following the path Lance had instructed, until finally they came to the item he’d been seeking. He could tell when she spotted it, because she let out a small “oh” at the sight.

His old trunk.

Releasing her hand, Oliver quickly worked to undo the lock and lifted the lid. His hand stumbled against various items inside until it finally rested on another small box tucked into the corner of the trunk, exactly where he’d left it years ago.

As he pulled out the small box, Felicity gave him a skeptical look. “Please don’t tell me we came here just so you can grab some magical island herbs.”

He chuckled, opening the little container and finding a folded piece of paper inside.  

She frowned in amusement as she watched him begin unfolding the paper before her eyes.

“A secret message from your family?”

“Something like that,” he answered.

Taking a deep breath and keeping his gaze fixed on her, Oliver slowly turned the paper around and waited...waited until Felicity spotted the familiar words on the page.

_I love you, Oliver._

She stilled when she saw them.

“You know what this is.” It wasn’t a question.

“Where did you…? Oliver, I can explain--” She reached to snatch the paper from his grasp, but he quickly moved it out of her reach and patiently folded the note back up like it was the most precious thing to him--and in some, small way it was--before safely tucking the note into his shirt pocket.

“I don't want you to explain.”

Felicity licked her lips, seemingly flustered in a way he hadn’t seen her in a long time, as though this was four years ago and they weren’t married and he hadn’t told her he loved her yet.

“I-I don’t understand. How did you get that?”

“I um…” Now came the tricky part. He needed her to know why he brought her here tonight, why this one piece of paper had been a lifeline for him in the midst of chaos and darkness and...having to walk away from this woman standing before him so many times.

“I found this in the printer in my office, the night The Count almost…” he paused, swallowing heavily, avoiding her eyes. “The night I killed him.” _The night I almost lost you_.

“Wait, you said you found it in _your_ printer?”

 _That_ was not what he was expecting.

Oliver looked up, frowning, confused by her tone.

“All these years, and I sent it to the wrong printer? Granted, I hadn’t exactly been thinking straight at the time, but still. How could you find this and not tell me? Why not just throw it away and put me out of her misery and...ugh, this is embarrassing--”

“What? _Why_?” He rushed close to her, his hands coming up on their own accord to grab her upper arms near her shoulders, his thumbs running in circles to try to soothe her.

She visibly relaxed under his touch. “I just…I never meant for you to see that. It was supposed to be for me, for my eyes only. It was just something I did to…”

“To what?” he asked.

“To try to let you go. Because I had all these inappropriate feelings--not _inappropriate_ inappropriate, just _feelings_ about my boss that were not returned--”

“That you knew of. That either of us knew of.” Oliver sighed, drawing warmth from her presence as he so often did, drawing strength from the familiar trust he saw plainly on her face. “I suspected that the note was from you, but after just telling you I couldn't be with someone that I could really care about, I just...I didn't know how to tell you I'd found it. And then The Count tried to hurt you, and then Barry Allen showed up and you went away and things got…”

“Complicated?”

“Yeah.”

Felicity offered him a tender smile. “Welcome to my world.”

“I didn’t know if you wanted me to know or not. And for a while, I didn't...I didn't want it to be you. Every instinct inside me told me not to let you in...not to let myself care about you. Everything I learned on the island, that you can’t trust anyone but yourself, that caring about people gets them killed.... Russia showed me that. The Count showed me that. Slade showed me that.”

“But you still kept it?” she asked softly.

Oliver shook his head, barely understanding why he did it himself. “I guess there was a part of me...a bigger part than I wanted to admit...that wanted this, wanted to be with you, even if I thought that could never happen.”

“Oliver…” Felicity breathed, reaching up to caress his cheek and hold his head in place, keeping him grounded, keeping him whole.

“I just wanted you to know that I knew. And I’m sorry I wasn’t ready...before.”

“Oliver, it’s okay. That’s all in the past. And we made it here, didn’t we?”

He sighed a laugh. “Yeah, I guess we did.”

“And I’m sorry, too.”

Oliver started. “For what?”

“For writing you basically the shortest love letter that ever existed.”

He laughed, his chest feeling suddenly lighter and fuller, as only Felicity could ever seem to bring him. And as he leaned down, she met him halfway, and he kissed his wife deeply, right there in the middle of the abandoned corner of the evidence warehouse, the note that she’d written him ages ago pressed between them, right against his heart, where it belonged.

When they finally broke apart for air, Felicity was smiling as she wrapped both her arms around one of his. But when he started moving, she paused. “You’re just gonna leave it?” She nodded to the trunk.

With one final glance at his past, Oliver nodded firmly, sure of his chosen future, sure of one half of his life standing beside him and the other half hopefully sound asleep by now back home.

“I don’t need it anymore,” he replied. “I have you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this rare canon-friendly fic from me!


End file.
